My LA eviction story

[Minh Nguyen]

So I inherited some tenants on a property I closed on earlier this year and had to go through the eviction process. While I was doing my due diligence on this process, I found some difficulty getting details on what to expect so wanted to share my experience as a data point in hopes of helping others who may be going through this process. Note that I’m not a lawyer and this is not legal advice by any means.

Some background: The property is a single family residence in the city of Los Angeles. SFR in LA are not subject to rent control. Tenants were on a month to month lease.

Day 0: Day after closing. I called tenant to inform them of change of ownership and that I’d be serving them a 60 day notice to vacate. A minimum of 60 day notice is required if the tenants have lived there for over a year. I offered a few thousand dollars as a courtesy to which she responded “That’s not enough” and suggested something closer to $25k. It became clear she wanted to milk the situation whether she had any legal standing or not.

Day 3: Send written notice of change of ownership and officially serve 60 day notice to vacate. Over the next couple of months, tenants paid rent. They sent a check for rent past the 60 day notice which I immediately returned. I believe if I accepted the money, it would void the 60 day notice.

Day 64: Tenants did not vacate. I file an unlawful detainer through my attorney to which the tenants have 5 days to respond.

Day 69: Tenants hired one of the eviction defense firms in LA and filed a response. The make all sorts of bogus claims which is standard practice according to my attorney. The key thing here though, is they also requested a jury trial. Even though the tenants may not have any legal standing, they’re entitled to a jury trial which can be expensive and risky for property owners. My attorney tells me this is a very common practice to extract a higher settlement. We proceed to schedule a court date for the hearing.

Day 90: After a few weeks, our court date arrives. It’s recommended you get there early for the DTLA courthouse because there’s a line around the block by the time the doors open. I think there are 2 or 3 courtrooms dedicated to eviction cases and I make my way to the one my case has been assigned to. I take a seat and at some point they do a roll call to determine which parties are present. Once this is done, it seems like everyone goes back out into the hallway to negotiate a settlement. How this plays out will depend on your situation. Eventually, we reach a settlement and go back into the courtroom for the judge to make it official.

For the most part, the settlement will involve some combination of money and time (how much more time tenant gets before lockout). In terms of time, expect anywhere between 30-120 days. They will also include other terms like sealing the records so the eviction does not show up on their records. By requesting a jury trial, they increase the amount of risk, time and money involved if the parties do not reach a settlement. Even though I had a strong case, it wasn’t a 100% chance of winning according to my lawyer. So at this point, I had to weigh the costs of settlement vs trial.

I’m not going to disclose the details of my settlement - it’s irrelevant anyway. Again, this is just one recount of my specific case. From what I gather though, this is a pretty typical scenario. My attorney said 95-99% of his cases end with a settlement. Just make sure you’re familiar with landlord/tenant laws as to not get yourself in trouble. Being new to this, it was quite a bit of anxiety for several months so hopefully this helps reduce some anxiety for others :)